PIA17766: Curiosity Mars Rover Approaches 'Dingo Gap,' Mastcam View
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
 Spacecraft:  Curiosity
 Instrument:  Mastcam
 Product Size:  5544 x 1047 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Malin Space Science Systems
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17766.tif (17.42 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17766.jpg (1.284 MB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Click here for larger version of PIA17766
Figure A
Click on the image for larger version

This scene combines images taken by the left-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the midafternoon, local Mars solar time, of the mission's 526th Martian day, or sol (Jan. 28, 2014). The sand dune in the upper center of the image spans a gap, called "Dingo Gap," between two short scarps. The dune is about 3 feet (1 meter) high. The nearer edge of it is about 115 feet (35 meters) away from the rover's position when the component images were taken, just after a Sol 526 drive of 49 feet (15 meters).

The image has been white-balanced to show what the rocks would look like if they were on Earth. A version with 200-centimeter (79-inch) scale bars is available as Figure A. A version with raw color, as recorded by the camera under Martian lighting conditions, is available as Figure B.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission and the mission's Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates Mastcam.

More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Image Addition Date:
2014-01-29